Bravura debuts this month from Calina Winery, the culmination of a decade's search by Kendall-Jackson for the finest red wine vineyards in Chile's coastal growing regions.

A blend of 71 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 29 percent Merlot, the 1999 vintage Bravura is sourced from the Itata, Maule and Colchagua Valleys, blending hand selected grapes from Chile's best red varietal vineyards in a style that Winemaker Andres Sanchez Westhoft likens to "bringing three brothers born in different places together again as a family."

The premier vintage is a limited release of 500 wooden six-pack cases, priced at $50 per 750ml retail. In early reviews, it has been called "one of the 10 best wines produced in Chile" by noted South American wine journalist Patricio Tapia. The wine will be among those shown by Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates at VinExpo Americas in New York City October 22-24, 2002 (for details and registration, visit www.vinexpo.com). Calina, owned by Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, had its first harvest in 1994.

Winemaker Sanchez describes Bravura as having a "deep ruby color with a nose that is rich and redolent with aromas of black fruit combined with cassis, sweet oak, tobacco and delicate tones of mint." The wine on the mouth, he says, "has great structure, and the acid gives way to juicy and concentrated berry flavors balanced perfectly with powerful and mature tannins." Finally, says Sanchez, "the long finish remains true to the wine's overall elegance." The wine was aged 18 months in medium toast French oak barrels, and has alcohol at 14.3 percent.

Sanchez says traditionally, wines of this level have focused on single vineyards, rather than blends. The direction for Bravura has been "to make the best wine possible, with no boundaries or established conventions, and with a new commitment to wines with great complexity and concentration," he said.

The name Bravura was chosen to echo this new direction, meaning daring and courageous, Sanchez said.

Calina vineyard manager Ricardo Marin says that Cabernet Sauvignon was sourced from the Itata Valley, where the Nueva Aldea hills are often shrouded in fog and most resemble California's Sonoma County. The vines are planted in thin, brick-red soils and decomposed granite on higher slopes that are very dry and very hot during the day, but cooled at night by maritime breezes. Grapes hand selected from Block 29 of this vineyard produce wine with intense color, low pH levels and good tannin structure.

Cabernet is also sourced from the Colchagua Valley, where the hillside vineyards offer wines with more compact tannins and concentrated fruit with hints of mint. The vineyards here are planted at a higher elevation than any vineyard in the Rapel region.

From the Maule Valley comes Bravura's Merlot, on 40-year old vines planted in soft loam soils which produce slow-ripening fruit with a characteristic plum flavor.

The wines are kept in separate lots for aging before Winemaker Sanchez selects the best barrels to blend for each vintage of Bravura. For the next vintage, Bravura will add an elite level Carmenere to its blend.

Calina's first release was a 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon, and estate vineyards were acquired beginning in 1997. The state of the art Calina Winery was opened in 2000 and Calina now has vineyard holdings of nearly 1,800 acres, offering Cabernet Sauvignon from the Colchagua Valley, Merlot from the Maule Valley, Carmenere from the Maule Valley, a Cabernet Sauvignon-Carmenere blend from Colchagua, along with a Chardonnay from the Casablanca Valley.

Kendall-Jackson Founder Jess Jackson has often called Chile "California Upside Down" and helped pioneer the modern resurgence of the Chilean wine industry. To learn more about Calina, visit www.calina.com

Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates produces a quality-focused portfolio of premium wines crafted from hillside and coastal growing regions in California, Italy, Chile, Argentina and Australia.